Apple, Samsung Resume Patent Infringement Dispute in Court

Resuming their long standing patent infringement dispute that dates all the way back to 2011, Apple and Samsung have once again returned to a San Jose district courtroom today, in order to determine the financial damages Samsung owes Apple for infringing on design patents covering the original iPhone, USA Today is reporting.

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While Apple has been seeking the full profits attributable to the sales of the infringed phones, Samsung has been arguing for smaller penalties directly related to the value of features impacted by the patents. 

During the earlier trial, Apple lawyer Seth Waxman argued that the design patent referred to “the thing to which the design is applied”, meaning the entire smartphone. Meanwhile Samsung’s lawyer Kathleen Sullivan told the justices, “A smartphone is smart because it contains hundreds of thousands of the technologies that make it work”.

As part of the earlier verdict, the Supreme Court noted that the article of manufacturer is “broad enough to embrace both a product sold to a consumer and a component of that product, whether sold separately or not.”

That’s “the big deal as this case moves forward,” says Mark McKenna, a professor of law at Notre Dame Law School. Determining the outcome won’t be easy for the jury, McKenna says. “The Supreme Court decision struck me as obviously right. But it didn’t do anybody a favor by punting on the hard question which is ‘how do I identify those circumstances where this is worth less than the whole?’”

The latest trial is expected to last about five days, with the jury to be selected today.

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